I know its highly possible for the first film you ever shot to have mistakes because its your first, even if you try to avoid some.
Let me tell you about mine. I was aiming to submit this to a short film contest which was being ran by a popular A-list director. There was only a month left to the submission deadline when I found this out. But the script had already been written way before this, so that was half the battle. Well, here goes...
This was my first short, first film, EVER.
20 min short film. 4 people total. 2 locations. 2 day shoot. One of those days went over 12 hours which is pretty much my fault because 1) I was nervous and never did this before; 2) I didn't plan adequately in terms of what to shoot first (i.e. all the scenes in the bathroom first, all the scenes in the next room second, etc.) in order to make the shooting process flow more smoothly.
1. Prior to beginning the shoot... I was planning to shoot this on my Canon HV20 which had been sitting around in my house for 5 years waiting for me to get my crap together and find time to write/film something. I chose this camera in 2007 mostly because of the Cine Mode and the fact that its great for low lighting shoots (this short film mostly takes place in a dark house). Plus the cost was very friendly (about $800-$1000 at the time whereas everything else was $2000 plus) and it was getting rave reviews. However, when our actress saw the camera during one of our meetings, she didn't think too highly of it due to its small size, she has never read the reviews and didn't know of its capabilities. She assumed it was one of those documentary-style handhelds. However, she introduced me to her friend who is a cinematographer and editor who I'm now good friends with, explaining that he has a much better (and bigger, I might add) camera called the Panasonic AVG 100 (I hope I'm typing the model correctly? I don't think I am). Being that it was one of those $2000 plus cameras I could never touch, I figured what the hell right?
2. One scene involved make-up/FX which I wasn't happy with, a close filmmaker friend of mine did it, but I decided to shut up because a) We only had one make up kit to work with and b) Couldn't afford a decent FX artist.
3. Looking back, I'm not too crazy about the lighting. I like it, it looks very nice, but I now realize it wasn't what I was aiming for. Most of this film was to take place in a dark house late at night so there was to be lots of low lighting simulating that effect. Lots of blue/orange was used. However, what I really wanted was something along the lines of "Night of the Demons" (1988, not the stupid remake).
4. We shot a dream sequence slightly out of focus on purpose to help give it a surreal effect, I felt I could have done something different but my cinematographer/editor said its ok for the dream not to look as perfect as everything else because its a dream. Top it all off, he said there wasn't much he could do in final cut pro to make it more "dream-like" and neither of us have After Effects.
5. My cinematographer didn't have a tripod handy, the reason for that I do not recall, but he assured me that he can hold the camera very still/steady. Unfortunately, that's not the case with about 50-60% of the shots. There's slight/minor shakiness here and there (it's not as bad as a Paul Greengrass film though). Bottom line, I'm not a big fan of the whole shaky cam thing. A part of me was kicking myself in the butt for not bringing my own targus tripod.
6. This was the big one. So my editor friend has Final Cut Pro, I don't. So before going to his place to begin the first edit session, I decided I may be able to save us both some time by making a "rough cut" edit on iMovie which I have. The plan was for him to upload the rough cut to FCP and we can trim/edit/put everything together around that cut. However, the end result was the first cut of the film included both shots from the iMovie rough cut and the original shots from his camera. The issue was that his shots were all clear while my iMovie shots were all grainy and crappy looking. So that was a mess.
It took about 3 months, due to scheduling conflicts, and several edit sessions to make this thing look as decent as it can possibly get. And let me tell you, it's not perfect looking but it looks as good as its going to get. None of this interrupts the flow of the script or anything like that, I'm just worried about the look and all of the above.
A part of me is wondering whether or not to submit it to contests or festivals. Another part is telling me to chill out, it's just your first short film, it's not supposed to be perfect. But will viewers/critics at a festival understand that when they are watching it or will I just have to take the punches? How many of you went through similar issues on your first shoot?
Let me tell you about mine. I was aiming to submit this to a short film contest which was being ran by a popular A-list director. There was only a month left to the submission deadline when I found this out. But the script had already been written way before this, so that was half the battle. Well, here goes...
This was my first short, first film, EVER.
20 min short film. 4 people total. 2 locations. 2 day shoot. One of those days went over 12 hours which is pretty much my fault because 1) I was nervous and never did this before; 2) I didn't plan adequately in terms of what to shoot first (i.e. all the scenes in the bathroom first, all the scenes in the next room second, etc.) in order to make the shooting process flow more smoothly.
1. Prior to beginning the shoot... I was planning to shoot this on my Canon HV20 which had been sitting around in my house for 5 years waiting for me to get my crap together and find time to write/film something. I chose this camera in 2007 mostly because of the Cine Mode and the fact that its great for low lighting shoots (this short film mostly takes place in a dark house). Plus the cost was very friendly (about $800-$1000 at the time whereas everything else was $2000 plus) and it was getting rave reviews. However, when our actress saw the camera during one of our meetings, she didn't think too highly of it due to its small size, she has never read the reviews and didn't know of its capabilities. She assumed it was one of those documentary-style handhelds. However, she introduced me to her friend who is a cinematographer and editor who I'm now good friends with, explaining that he has a much better (and bigger, I might add) camera called the Panasonic AVG 100 (I hope I'm typing the model correctly? I don't think I am). Being that it was one of those $2000 plus cameras I could never touch, I figured what the hell right?
2. One scene involved make-up/FX which I wasn't happy with, a close filmmaker friend of mine did it, but I decided to shut up because a) We only had one make up kit to work with and b) Couldn't afford a decent FX artist.
3. Looking back, I'm not too crazy about the lighting. I like it, it looks very nice, but I now realize it wasn't what I was aiming for. Most of this film was to take place in a dark house late at night so there was to be lots of low lighting simulating that effect. Lots of blue/orange was used. However, what I really wanted was something along the lines of "Night of the Demons" (1988, not the stupid remake).
4. We shot a dream sequence slightly out of focus on purpose to help give it a surreal effect, I felt I could have done something different but my cinematographer/editor said its ok for the dream not to look as perfect as everything else because its a dream. Top it all off, he said there wasn't much he could do in final cut pro to make it more "dream-like" and neither of us have After Effects.
5. My cinematographer didn't have a tripod handy, the reason for that I do not recall, but he assured me that he can hold the camera very still/steady. Unfortunately, that's not the case with about 50-60% of the shots. There's slight/minor shakiness here and there (it's not as bad as a Paul Greengrass film though). Bottom line, I'm not a big fan of the whole shaky cam thing. A part of me was kicking myself in the butt for not bringing my own targus tripod.
6. This was the big one. So my editor friend has Final Cut Pro, I don't. So before going to his place to begin the first edit session, I decided I may be able to save us both some time by making a "rough cut" edit on iMovie which I have. The plan was for him to upload the rough cut to FCP and we can trim/edit/put everything together around that cut. However, the end result was the first cut of the film included both shots from the iMovie rough cut and the original shots from his camera. The issue was that his shots were all clear while my iMovie shots were all grainy and crappy looking. So that was a mess.
It took about 3 months, due to scheduling conflicts, and several edit sessions to make this thing look as decent as it can possibly get. And let me tell you, it's not perfect looking but it looks as good as its going to get. None of this interrupts the flow of the script or anything like that, I'm just worried about the look and all of the above.
A part of me is wondering whether or not to submit it to contests or festivals. Another part is telling me to chill out, it's just your first short film, it's not supposed to be perfect. But will viewers/critics at a festival understand that when they are watching it or will I just have to take the punches? How many of you went through similar issues on your first shoot?
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-Beers. Kyyyyran.